


The Promised Land

by DizzyDrea



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-25 16:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16201385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyDrea/pseuds/DizzyDrea
Summary: Wyatt comes online while the team is in the past, but it’s not the act of coming online that throws him, it’s the idea that he’ll need a guide. He’s always known that he was a latent Sentinel, but he’d been in so many combat situations without coming online that he thought it would never happen. Now, as he contemplates bonding, he has to face his wife’s death and find a way to move on. If he can’t, there may be no hope for him.





	1. The Past

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of my projects for the Rough Trade Little Black Dress Challenge in July. It was my first stab at a Sentinel fusion, and much of my knowledge of the concept of Sentinels and Guides comes from fanfiction, so be aware that I've taken liberties to make the concept fit the story I wanted to tell. The story hasn't changed much since I posted it on RT, so if you find errors... well, I'm sorry they're still there, but I really don't want to know about them. :)
> 
> Spoilers for episode 1.7, "Stranded" (though, really, if it's a spoiler for you at this point, where have you been?).
> 
> Disclaimer: Timeless and all its particulars belong to Eric Kripke, Shawn Ryan, MiddKid Productions, Kripke Enterprises, Davis Entertainment, Universal Television, Sony Pictures Television and a lot of other people who aren't me. I'm doing this for fun and for practice. Mostly for fun.

~o~

Looking back, Lucy couldn't really pinpoint when the day had gone so spectacularly wrong. 

It had started normally enough: they'd gotten word that Flynn had jumped back in time, and so they'd all rushed into wardrobe to get ready for the mission. Lucy should have known then that something was wrong, but she honestly hadn't thought much beyond getting ready to go. 

She'd wondered idly, as she always did while Wyatt strapped her into the Lifeboat and Rufus ran through the pre-flight checks in preparation for departure, what they'd find when they landed. 1754 wasn't a particularly significant year, but slavery still existed, so they'd have to be careful where Rufus was concerned. Nothing new there. 

It hadn't occurred to her until they'd landed and tumbled out of the Lifeboat that she should be wondering why they'd gone to 1754. Nothing of significance had happened in 1754. They were still years from the important events of the Revolutionary War, and while the French and Indian War was underway, those events hadn't had a significant impact on the creation of the United States as a nation.

Truthfully, they were at least a decade away from the Stamp Act, and the events that would represent the start of open hostilities between the Colonies and Great Britain, and yet Flynn had chosen this time and place to land. None of them had questioned it, really, and by the time they had, it had been too late. Flynn had sabotaged the Lifeboat, and they were effectively stranded in 1754.

That hadn't even been the worst of it, because blundering around the woods had brought them face to face with the Natives, and with the relationship between the three of them fracturing, the Shawnee hadn't actually had to work all that hard to sneak up on them. They'd been captured, restrained and taken to the village, tied to posts and left to wonder how it had all gone so wrong.

But for as bad as all that had been, it was nothing to what was happening now. She could feel pressure in the air building, like a thunderstorm gathering in the clouds. Except there wasn't a cloud in sight, and she'd felt this particular pressure only once before. Granted, it had been a while, but it wasn't something you tended to forget.

The Shawnee had been arguing among themselves for several minutes, and Lucy didn't need to speak their language to know what they were talking about. Nonhelema, the chieftess, had made it clear she didn't trust them, nor did any of the men she'd brought with her. There was a real chance she'd just order them executed, and Lucy worried what that would do to Wyatt. 

She glanced worriedly at Rufus before returning to watching Wyatt. He'd been squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head for several minutes, occasionally bending and stretching his neck, seeking some kind of relief. The pressure was continuing to build, and soon it would reach critical mass before it broke. If that happened, she couldn't guarantee how Wyatt would react, or what he'd be capable of.

He'd started pulling against the ropes holding them to the tree trunks they were tied to, but the ropes were tied too tightly, and she knew that if he didn't stop, he'd hurt himself. Of course, if he broke free, he might hurt anyone who got in his way, which was a whole other problem. 

"Wyatt," she said, modulating her voice, trying to get his attention without calling attention to what she was doing. "Wyatt, listen to my voice. Just focus on me, okay?"

He turned to her, but his eyes were unfocused. He was clearly struggling, but without being able to touch him, she couldn't really help him. All she could do was wait for him to come online and hope he didn't do too much damage before they could get him calmed down. She'd never had to deal with a feral Sentinel, and while she knew what to do in principle, she also knew that it was never that simple in practice.

"Hey, is he okay?" Rufus asked.

Lucy turned, keeping one eye on Wyatt as she answered the other man. "He's coming online. I'm worried what he'll do if we're still tied up when it happens."

"He's—" Rufus stuttered, eyes going as big as saucers. "He's a Sentinel? Holy shit! Wait, how do you—"

Lucy tuned out the rest of what he said because, in that very moment, the pressure popped. Her head whipped around, heart frantically beating in her chest as she realized that he'd finally tipped over the edge. She could see the fire building in his eyes, watched as he pulled at the ropes holding him prisoner. He was either going to hurt himself, or break free and hurt someone else, and she couldn't let either of those things happen.

"Wyatt!" she shouted. "Wyatt, listen to me. You have to calm down. We're still here, we're still okay. Nothing has happened yet. You need to stop struggling and take a deep breath."

Her words were met with a growl, which worried her even more. She looked around, searching for some way to help him when she noticed the Shawnee watching them. She pulled against her own ropes, leaning towards them as if getting closer would help drive her point home.

"You have to let me help him," she said, practically begging. "He's coming online, and he's going to go feral. I can stop this from ending badly, but you have to let me help him."

The male Shawnee sneered at her. "You are lying! If we let you go, you will—"

Nonhelema held up her hand, cutting off his words. She took a step forward, focusing on Lucy. "He is a Protector? You are certain?"

"He is no Protector," the male hissed behind her. "His clothes give him away. He is nothing but—"

"Silence," the woman said. She took another step closer to Lucy. "You are a Spirit Walker. Are you bound to him?"

Lucy shook her head. "We're not bonded, but I felt him come online. He's going to go feral if you don't release me. He'll try to protect me, and I won't be able to stop him from killing you all. Please, you have to let me help him."

Nonhelema tilted her head, her eyes shifting between Wyatt and Lucy. She could hear Rufus' ragged breathing, but thankfully he wasn't saying anything. Both Lucy and Rufus were important to Wyatt, so she had to believe that the combination of the two of them being held against their will, plus being faced with hostiles holding them captive... yeah, she thought she might be able to make a case for a high body count.

The chieftess turned to her companion. "Release the woman." 

The man looked like he was going to object, but her gaze turned hard and unforgiving, which seemed to convince him to do as she'd ordered. He approached Lucy, his expression telling her he'd rather be doing anything other than exactly what he was about to do, but she didn't care. She cut her eyes to Wyatt, who was watching the Shawnee carefully. He'd stopped struggling, his entire focus on her and the man cutting the ropes holding her in place.

As soon as the last of the ropes had fallen away, Lucy practically dove for Wyatt, her hands coming up to cup his cheeks. "Wyatt, listen to me. You need to focus on my voice, on the feel of my skin against yours. Can you do that?"

She waited long seconds as he watched her. She projected an air of calm assurance, her thumbs sweeping across his cheekbones as she willed him to stand down. 

"Lucy?" he finally asked, a definite bewildered tone to his voice. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it once again. "What... what happened?"

"You came online," she said quietly. "Did you know? Did you know you were a latent Sentinel?"

He nodded jerkily. "They tested me when I enlisted. It's why I ended up in Spec Ops."

Lucy glanced behind her at Nonhelema. She was watching them curiously, but not making any moves to separate them. Lucy turned back to watch Wyatt once more. His breathing had evened out, and the wildness in his eyes had faded. She took a deep breath, relief flooding through her.

"How are your levels?" she asked.

"I... I'm okay," he said. "A little shaky, but okay."

"He is lying," the Shawnee man said. "The white men have no Protectors."

"You assume he has reason to lie," Nonhelema said chidingly.

"He is a white man," the man said with a sneer. "Of course he would lie. And when you have let him and his companions go, they will return and kill us in our beds."

Nonhelema seemed to be considering the man's words. Lucy could understand his prejudices. During this time period, it wasn't like there was much love lost between the Shawnee and either the French or the British. But there wasn't anything she, Wyatt and Rufus could do to change that; they needed to leave, and soon, or risk contaminating the timeline further.

"If he truly is a Protector, he can prove it," Nonhelema finally said.

Lucy took a deep breath. This close to going feral, she worried that Wyatt wouldn't have the control over his senses that he'd need in order to prove he was a Sentinel. Plus, he'd just come online. Normally, there'd be a period of adjustment and training before he'd be asked to use his senses in any sort of real-world setting.

"I know it's asking a lot, but—"

"It's okay, Lucy," Wyatt said quietly. "I've worked with enough Sentinels to know how this is supposed to go. Just talk me through it; keep me grounded so I don't lose it. I don't want to hurt anyone if I can help it."

"Okay," she said, nodding her head. "Okay. Just, focus on me, on my hands on your skin. Now, listen for my heartbeat. Can you hear it?" He nodded, and she smiled. "Okay, now Rufus. Listen for his heartbeat."

Wyatt closed his eyes briefly, searching for the unique sound of Rufus' heartbeat. She wanted him to imprint on them first, to know how to find them in case they ever got separated, and the best way to do that was to memorize their heartbeats. And purely for selfish reasons, she wanted Wyatt to know her, to be able to recognize her whether or not he could see her.

When he opened his eyes, he focused on her. "Okay, got him."

Lucy smiled, shifting her hand back to cup his neck. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his. "Now, go wider. Listen to all the heartbeats in the camp. Count them up as you dismiss them until you can only hear mine again. Can you do that?"

She felt rather than saw his smile. "Yeah, I think I can do that."

He closed his eyes again and she could feel it when he stretched out his hearing, extending as far as he could and listening for the telltale heartbeat of each person in the camp. For long moments, it was just her breathing and his. Finally, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He turned his head, looking directly at Nonhelema.

"There are 106 people in your tribe," he said.

"That is a lie!" the other man shouted.

Nonhelema's eyes went round as saucers, her hand fluttering to her belly. "You can hear him?"

"Yes," Wyatt said, smiling faintly. "He's healthy. Strong."

"He is lying," the other man insisted. "You cannot believe a word he says. He is a white man! He would rather see us dead."

"And yet he knows our numbers, having seen none but the four of us," she said. "And he knows that I will bear a child in the spring. He could not know that unless he were a Protector."

"That does not mean he will not kill us," the man said. He stepped closer to Nonhelema. "Think of your child."

"I do nothing but think of him, my brother," she said, her words sharp and unforgiving. "I think of him and what I want him to know of this world. Would you have him grow up living in fear of the white man? Or would you have him grow up understanding that not all is as it seems. For myself, I would have him learn to take each person as they come. White men included."

The man shook his head, his expression resigned. He crossed the clearing and cut Rufus' ropes first, then approached Lucy and Wyatt. Lucy plastered herself to his side, willing him to stay calm as the Shawnee man cut his ropes. When the last rope fell away, Wyatt nearly collapsed, only Lucy's weight pressing against him kept him from falling over.

Rufus rushed to Wyatt's other side, helping her hold him up. "While I'm glad we're not going to die at the hands of the local tribe, that still doesn't help us get the Lifeboat fixed."

The woman was watching them carefully. "There is a hut nearby you can rest in. And perhaps some of my men can help you find what you need to repair your carriage."

Lucy and Rufus shared a look, Wyatt practically passed out between them. She cut her eyes to the Sentinel, and then back to Rufus. He nodded, understanding without the words that she couldn't leave Wyatt alone, not until she was sure his senses weren't spiking. The last thing they needed was for Wyatt to zone out, or fall back into a feral state.

"Yeah, I could use some help rounding up some supplies," Rufus said to the woman.

Nonhelema nodded and turned to go. Lucy looked at Rufus, who looked back at her. Both of them shrugged, turning to follow her, dragging a nearly unconscious Wyatt between them, despite the less than friendly look on the face of her male companion. 

Lucy didn't blame him for being suspicious, but at the same time, she couldn't understand why he was being so hostile. There were plenty of anecdotes about Native North American tribes and their stories about Protectors—what the white man came to know as Sentinels. Perhaps he was just angry that his leader trusted Wyatt more than him. Lucy figured as her brother, he was probably more than a bit protective, especially now that she was pregnant.

At least she hoped that was all it was.

~o~

Nonhelema had shown them to a hut—a teepee, Wyatt had muttered with a snort in one of his more lucid moments—and left them there, only interrupting them to bring water and some food before leaving them be. Lucy was grateful, for the sustenance and for the consideration. The chieftess had been far more open to their presence in the village than her brother had, though he'd seemed to grudgingly accept them after a few sharp words from his sister. She had no idea how long that would last.

Rufus had slipped out before dawn, headed for Fort Duquesne with a small Shawnee raiding party, hoping to find the supplies he'd need to repair the Lifeboat and get them home. Not that that was a certainty, even if he could MacGyver something together; without the navigation system, they could easily end up in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. She hoped fervently that the message in a bottle that they'd buried near the Lifeboat actually got to their team. Otherwise they'd die trying to get home. 

At least Wyatt seemed calm. He'd stretched out on the pallet once they'd stumbled into the hut, squeezing his eyes shut as he lay quietly in the pre-dawn darkness. Lucy had settled herself down at his side, propping one elbow on her bent knee as she held his hand with the other, running her thumb over the back of his hand as she attempted to give him something to focus on that would keep his senses from spiraling. If he zoned out, she wasn't sure she'd be able to bring him back, and she didn't really feel like finding out anytime soon.

"Thank you," Wyatt said quietly some time later, his words slightly muffled by the arm he'd thrown over his face. "For… everything. For keeping me from… just, thanks."

Lucy squeezed his hand. "No thanks necessary. I did what any Guide would do: I helped a near-feral Sentinel until he could get control of himself."

"How long have you been a Guide?" he asked, one eye peeking out from under his arm.

"I came online in college—undergrad," she said. She shook her head. "My mother doesn't know. No one did. Well, Amy knew. But no one else."

"Why not?" he asked. "How'd you keep it a secret? I've seen a few Guides come online in my time. It's not usually very quiet."

"I came online in my dorm," she said, thinking back to that night. "It was… awful. College kids' heads are a mess, and mine was no different, but getting empathic projections from all of them at once was…"

"Awful?"

Lucy chuckled. "Yeah, it was really awful. I went to the Health Office for the headache, knowing they'd realize what was wrong with me right away. Thankfully it was the end of the semester, and I was supposed to go backpacking in Europe with some friends. I went to a retreat instead, spent a few weeks trying to get my head screwed on straight. When I came home, no one was the wiser, and apart from my sister, it's stayed that way."

"Why didn't you tell your mom?" he asked. "I mean, you've said that history was your mom's thing, so I have to believe this would have been your way out. Why not take it?"

"She'd just been diagnosed," Lucy whispered. "I didn't want to disappoint her. She was sick already. This would have just been one more thing to add to that. I—I couldn't do it. Amy said I was an idiot. Maybe she was right."

"You are an idiot," Wyatt said. He pulled his arm away so he could look her in the eyes. "You're also entitled to deal with this in whatever way you want. Which I'm sure they told you when you went to the retreat."

"Yeah," she said. She squeezed his hand as she let him feel her gratitude. "They told me that the privacy laws meant that no one could reveal my Guide status without my permission. I had my records sealed and went back to my old life."

"You didn't expect to find a Sentinel, did you?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Sentinels don't normally study history, and most Guides are male. Plus, there are more Guides than Sentinels, so I didn't think it would matter much if I just didn't go looking for one."

"And it made it easier to pretend for your mom."

"Yeah, it did." She looked at him in the low light of the hut. His color was better, his breathing more even, and his mind seemed to have settled some from the trauma of coming online. He was relaxed on the pallet, his arm no longer covering his face but resting beside him, hand on his thigh playing with the seam of his pants. "What about you? You seemed surprised earlier that you'd come online."

"A little," he said. "The military tests everyone who joins, mostly because Sentinels are normally drawn to serve. There are far fewer latent Sentinels than I think they'd like, but like I said, the ones they do find are funneled into Spec Ops."

"They're hoping you'll come online," Lucy said. It wasn't a surprise, really. She'd studied enough military history to know that Sentinels were likely to come online in combat if they didn't do it naturally.

"Pretty much," he said. "Which, I'm honestly surprised I didn't. I've been in enough combat situations that I think my superiors were wondering if the tests had been wrong."

"That didn't bother you?" she asked. "Not coming online?"

"Honestly? I was a little relieved." He rubbed his free hand over his face. "That's terrible, right? I was glad I hadn't come online, because of what it would have done to Jessica. God, I'm just glad she isn't here to see it. Is that terrible of me?"

"No, it's not terrible," Lucy said softly. "You're a Sentinel. You wanted to protect the most important person in your world. It's who you are; you shouldn't feel guilty about that."

Wyatt snorted. "Right. You know the docs thought I was doing it on purpose. Not coming online, because somehow I knew how it would affect Jessica, and I couldn't—"

Lucy squeezed his hand, helping ground him. "They're probably not wrong. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened. For as much as we don't understand what triggers a Sentinel to come online, we also don't really know why some remain latent, or even go dormant. You'd have had to know that you'd lose—"

Wyatt dropped his hand to his side and looked at Lucy. "Just say it. I can take it."

"You'd probably have lost her anyway," she said softly, just barely loud enough for him to hear. "When you came online, you'd have eventually found a Guide to bond with. At some point, you wouldn't have been able to tolerate Jessica's touch. Your Guide would have become your world, and she'd have just… faded away."

"Christ," he said, yanking his hand away from hers. He covered his face with both hands, ragged breaths slipping out between his fingers.

Lucy knelt beside him and tugged at his wrists. He let her pull his hands away, looking up at her with such genuine anguish on his face that she felt herself buckling under the empathic weight of it. She pulled him up and folded him into her arms, tucking his face into the crook of her neck as she rocked him gently. She'd tried very hard to respect his privacy, to keep her shields up and to not read him, but she couldn't help but feel his anguish and reach out to soothe it, pouring calm and comfort into his mind as she stroked his back in reassuring sweeps.

"Shhhh," she crooned. "It's okay. You're not alone in this, Wyatt. You'll never be alone again. I promise you."

She thought about what they'd said to each other as they'd stomped through the forest earlier in the day. She thought about how angry Wyatt was that he didn't have anyone he could depend on, that he didn't have a team to back him up. She thought about how Rufus had been backed into a corner and forced to record their missions on a tiny voice recorder, blackmailed by some shadowy figure who'd promised retribution on his family if he didn't comply. She thought about her own deal with Agent Christopher, and how she'd made the woman promise that, when Rittenhouse was dismantled and Flynn caught and jailed, that they'd allow her to fix the timeline and bring her sister back from oblivion. And about how that looked to the two people who should have been able to trust her.

Wyatt wasn't the only one stuck in a no-win situation, but he was the only one used to having a team to rely on. And they'd really sucked at being a team—Lucy the historian and Rufus the computer technician, neither profession offering much in the way of teamwork—but somehow they made it work. And now that it was all out in the open, maybe they could get past it and get back in the game.

If they could get back to the future.

Lucy snorted. 

Wyatt pulled back, giving her a questioning look. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, waving her hand. "Just… nothing."

Wyatt looked at her, and she could feel the weight of his stare, as if he were trying to look into her very soul. "Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Because we're stuck in 1754, guests of a not-necessarily-friendly tribe of Indians, with no guarantee that we'll be able to—"

"What?" Lucy asked.

"With no guarantee we'll be able to get back to the future," he said, barely holding back a laugh. "That's what made you snort, isn't it?"

Lucy pressed her lips together, nodding her head instead of opening her mouth. She had a feeling if she did, she'd just laugh, and that might not be appropriate.

Instead, Wyatt broke down and laughed, sagging against her until he was wheezing. Lucy had no hope of keeping it contained in light of Wyatt's breakdown, so she finally let go and laughed, and if it had a little edge of hysteria to it, well, she wasn't going to point it out.

Rufus found them that way some time later. He just stood in the opening of the hut, frowning at them as they huddled together and tried to get the laughing under control.

"Sorry," Lucy wheezed, waving her hand in front of her. "We just—"

"Don't," Wyatt said, covering her mouth with his hand. "Or else we'll just start up again, and I don't think my sides could take it."

"Are you guys okay?" Rufus asked, that frown of confusion that had become so much a part of him firmly in place.

"Yeah," Lucy said, still huffing out the occasional giggle.

"Mostly," Wyatt said, nodding. He took a deep breath, and Lucy could see him trying to refocus on the moment at hand. "Did you get everything you needed?"

"I think so," Rufus said, still glancing between them as if they'd just go off again. He probably wasn't wrong. "A couple of the Shawnee are going to help me get everything set. I'm hoping we'll be ready to head for the Lifeboat this afternoon."

"Good," Wyatt said. He tilted his head a little, looking at Rufus like he might be examining him down to his molecules. "Do you really think it'll work? Patching the Lifeboat with 18th century technology?"

Rufus opened his mouth, then shut it as if he'd reconsidered what he was about to say. He probably had; the stories of how Sentinels could tell when you were lying using visual and auditory cues were well known. It was pointless to lie to a Sentinel, so most people didn't even try.

"Yes. Maybe," Rufus said, shaking his head even as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Which is it?" Wyatt asked. He wasn't being harsh, but for just a second Rufus hunched his shoulders before he pulled them back and straightened up.

"I think so," Rufus said, "providing the materials I gathered work the way I think they will. But we still might miss the landing pad, or not even rematerialize at all if they never got our message. It's a crap-shoot, really, but it's our only shot."

"And you think our message got to the team back in San Francisco?" Lucy asked.

"Mason knows," Rufus said, nodding. "It was his idea. He didn't want to run the risk of not getting the Mothership or the Lifeboat back."

"Good," Wyatt said, nodding. "Let us know if we can help at all."

Rufus shook his head. "There's a few things I need to do here, and then I need to hook it all up to the Lifeboat and… pray."

"It'll work," Wyatt said, and the certainty in his voice made even Lucy believe it.

Rufus stood up a little taller. "Yes, it will."

She didn't know if he believed it, but it was their only chance to get home.

~o~

It hadn't taken Rufus more than a few hours to pull together the "repair kit" for the Lifeboat. He'd muttered the entire way back, and Lucy figured some of it must have been making a list of things they should keep on hand, just in case they had to make repairs on the fly. 

The Shawnee had sent a patrol out ahead of them, reporting back that the French were searching the area. It didn't take a genius to realize that de Villiers was still looking for them. He must have been pissed when a group including a woman and a slave got the jump on his men, killing at least one of them. Recapturing them must have been at the top of his to-do list.

Unfortunately, that would complicate things for them. Rufus had no idea how long it would take to make the repairs once they got there; patching the exterior was pretty straightforward, but he had to cannibalize the navigation system in order to repair the stabilizers first. Once that was done, he could set up his jerry-rigged capacitors. Hopefully they held long enough to get them into the time stream; if they could get that far, the team back home could pull them in.

It was a lot of ifs and maybes, but they didn't have much of a choice. Staying in 1754 just wasn't an option.

"You almost finished there, Rufus?" Wyatt asked as he finished attaching the metal plate to the exterior of the Lifeboat, covering up the spot where Flynn's team had blown a hole in the skin.

"Yeah," Rufus said. He had the capacitor replacement in a wooden box, which he carried over. "No idea if it'll work, but it's ready."

"It'll work," Wyatt said, slapping Rufus on the shoulder.

"Listen, guys," Rufus said, nervously shuffling from one foot to the other. "I'm sorry. I should have said something sooner. You know, about the—"

"It's okay, Rufus," Lucy said, laying a hand on his arm. "You were scared. We all were. And we get it, we do."

"Of course we do," Wyatt said, nodding his agreement. "They were threatening your family. You barely knew us and had no reason to trust us."

"Thanks," Rufus said, sagging a little. "I think this is ready to install. Unless you guys want to hang around here longer?"

"No, no, no, no, no," Lucy said, hands up as if in surrender. "I think I've had enough of 1754."

"Let's get going, then," Wyatt said with a smile. "Mount up!"

"Okay, never say that again," Rufus said as he climbed up into the Lifeboat. "Plus, you do know it's going to take me around twenty minutes to hook this monstrosity up, right?

"Oh, good, because I needed to get a manicure," Lucy said.

"Funny," Wyatt said to her. "I'm going to check the perimeter one more time."

"How are your levels?" she asked. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it as she waited for his answer.

Wyatt squeezed back. "I'm good. Just because I was latent didn't mean they didn't drill into us what to do when one of us came online in the field. I've got it handled."

"Okay," she said, flashing a smile. "Just let me know if that changes."

"I will," he said. "I promise."

Lucy watched him head out into the woods, quietly impressed with how well he was handling this whole thing. The last time she'd seen a Sentinel come online, it had been not long after she'd come online herself. She'd been at the mall, stocking up on supplies before she started back to school when she's noticed a commotion in the food court. There'd been that same pressure in the air that had popped like a balloon in the instant that the Sentinel tipped over the edge. The Sentinel in question had collapsed from the shock of it. She'd found out later that he was a police officer, shopping for back-to-school supplies with his wife and kids. 

She'd felt guilty for a time for not going to him immediately and offering her help. As a Guide, she'd been ideally suited to help him, but she'd been scared to death that doing so would out her to her family. So, she'd pretended to be just another shopper and left as soon as she could. 

She hadn't been lying to Wyatt when she'd said that she never expected to find a Sentinel she'd want to bond with, but here she was, faced with that prospect just the same. She liked Wyatt, had trusted him right from the start. He was strong and brave, and broken in ways that made her heart ache. Did she have the right to ask him to bond with her, knowing that he still wasn't over the loss of his wife? 

The thing Lucy was most afraid of was losing him. She wasn't sure if he'd realized it yet, but the chances were, now that he'd come online, the Army would recall him so he could be redeployed, likely into a war zone somewhere halfway around the world. They'd find a Guide he could work with and reassign him, and she'd never hear from him again. 

She cringed at the bitterness of that thought. That wasn't fair to Wyatt, and it certainly wasn't the type of person she wanted to be. She didn't want to be selfish, but maybe just this once she could have something just for herself.

Her counselor at the Guide retreat she'd gone to all those years ago had told her once that when she found a Sentinel she was compatible with, she'd find herself wanting to be with him. Or her. The counselor had been very clear about that; with the emergence of the first female Sentinels, there existed every possibility that she'd find herself attracted to a woman for the first time in her life. Oddly, that hadn't bothered her, especially when the counselor had told her that Sentinels and Guides were inherently bisexual. 

Of course, all this could be moot if they didn't make it back, and she'd only end up going in circles if she didn't just push it out of her mind now.

She saw Wyatt jogging back into the clearing, head tilted in that way that said he was listening to something beyond the hearing of the average human.

"What is it?" she asked, taking a few steps towards him.

"De Villiers and his men are close," he said as he stopped in front of her. "How's Rufus doing?"

"I—"

She'd been so distracted by her thoughts that she hadn't really been paying attention, which was inexcusable. Thankfully, Rufus had been paying attention.

"I'm almost finished," he said, poking his head out of the Lifeboat. "Just a few more wires and we're set."

"Good," Wyatt said. He turned to Lucy. "Get inside and strap in. If they reach the clearing before we take off, I want you as protected as you can be."

"Where are you going to be?" Lucy asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"I'm going to be out here, covering our exit," he said. Lucy opened her mouth to argue, but Wyatt held up a hand. "Please don't argue on this one. I need to know you're safe. I can't have you exposed and keep my senses under control." He paused. "Please, Lucy. I need you to do this for me."

"Okay," she said quietly, reaching out and squeezing his hand. "I'll stay inside. But you have to promise you won't stay outside any longer than you have to."

"I promise," he said, flashing a smile at her. "Now get inside. Let me know when you're ready to take off."

"It shouldn't be much longer," Rufus said. He looked between the two of them, then went back inside and got back under the control console.

Wyatt followed Lucy back into the Lifeboat. "I can fasten my own restraints, you know," she said as he reached for the harness and began helping her into it.

"I know, but I'd feel better if I knew they were secure."

He sounded almost guilty about that, so she reached out and placed a hand on his cheek. He looked up at her. "Hey, it's okay. Your instincts are probably pushing at you. It's okay to go with what they're telling you. Fighting them won't do any good, and it might actually make things worse."

"I know," he said, exhaling loudly as he went back to making sure her restraints were secure. "It's just... I've never had to deal with instincts like this before."

"We'll get through this, Wyatt," she said. "Just, dial down your hearing. You haven't fired your gun since you came online, and I don't want you to zone on the sound."

"Thanks," Wyatt said with a smile. "I'll remember."

Wyatt tilted his head, clearly listening for any out-of-place noises. "They're coming. Stay down. I'll try to draw their fire away from the Lifeboat. Just yell when you've got the repairs complete. I'll hear you, no matter where I am."

Rufus' muffled _yeah_ was the only answer he seemed to need. Without a backward glance, Wyatt jumped out of the Lifeboat and headed off into the woods, drawing his gun as he went. 

Despite the fact that he'd asked her to keep her head down, Lucy leaned out as far as the harness would let her. She could see Wyatt on the other side of the clearing, bracing behind a tree as the French soldiers burst into the clearing. There were a dozen of them, some shooting at the Lifeboat and some shooting at Wyatt. Lucy wasn't too worried that they'd hit something vital—the guns they were using weren't the most accurate guns in history—but even a bad marksman could get in a lucky shot, so she hoped Rufus would finish quickly. The sooner they could close the hatch, the sooner they could get out of there.

She heard the popping sound of Wyatt's gun going off, and saw as he methodically fired at the soldiers, hitting each one precisely where it would cause just enough damage to incapacitate them. When all of them were down, Wyatt headed for the Lifeboat.

"Now would be a good time, Rufus," he said as he strapped himself in. "I don't know if that's all of them, and I don't think we want to wait around to find out."

"Got it!" Rufus exclaimed excitedly. He crawled out from under the console and strapped himself in as he quickly ran through the pre-flight routine.

"Will it hold?" Wyatt asked.

"The better question is, did the team back home get our message," Rufus said as he input the coordinates into the computer. "Because if they didn't, this is gonna be a short trip to oblivion."

"It'll work," Lucy said. "It's got to work."

Wyatt reached across the Lifeboat and took her hand, squeezing gently as he smiled at her. Lucy reached out and laid a hand on Rufus' shoulder; Rufus, for his part, reached up with his free hand and grasped Lucy's.

Lucy and Wyatt's eyes met and held as the Lifeboat came to life around them, rattling and spinning as it prepared to enter the time stream, and Lucy realized that, for the first time in her life, she was right where she wanted to be.

...continued...


	2. The Present

~o~

They tumbled out of the Lifeboat in the present day, only a few feet from the landing pad. Landing had crushed a few computers, but thankfully there hadn't been anyone sitting there at the time. It was a miracle that they'd managed to land so close to their target, but Wyatt wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They were home, and that was all that mattered.

"You made it!" Jiya yelled, rushing past a relieved-looking Agent Christopher and Connor Mason. She practically wrapped herself around Rufus and squeezed tight. Rufus shot them a slightly panicked look, but all Wyatt could do was give him a thumbs-up.

Rufus finally patted her on the back, still looking slightly constipated. "Yeah, we made it. Seems like you got my message."

"Star Wars!" she said brightly, pulling back. "It was brilliant, because we'd just talked about it last week at dinner. Of course, we had to extrapolate from just a few key words, because the container didn't survive intact, but—"

"It didn't?" Rufus asked. He frowned for all of three seconds, then his face cleared. "Because it was plastic. Not durable enough. But we used it because it was environmentally friendly. Guess we need to look at other materials that won't biodegrade but will protect the message inside."

"Glass, maybe," Jiya said. "But then again, the glass might break under the pressure, same as the plastic. I don't think we could get a good enough seal on a metal container unless we used a rubber gasket, which would totally—"

"Jiya, I'm sure you and Rufus will have plenty of time to discuss this later," Mason said, calmly interrupting her rambles. 

"Oh, yeah," she said, looking slightly abashed. Her face brightened up again as she turned back to look at Rufus. "Oh!" 

She leaned in and kissed Rufus, who looked startled for all of two seconds before he pulled her in and kissed her properly. Wyatt shared a glance with Lucy, both of them smiling. 

Rufus had confided in them, just before they'd taken off for 1754, that he and Jiya had gone on a date and had a great time debating Star Wars versus Star Trek. They'd been hoping to go on another one, but Flynn's trip had put those plans on hold. Wyatt was glad it was working out for them, because he was tired of Rufus angsting over how to ask her out, when to ask her out, where to go and what to do. 

"Flynn lured you to 1754 to sabotage the Lifeboat, correct?" Agent Christopher asked as Rufus and Jiya pulled apart again.

"Yes, we believe so," Lucy said. "Neither he nor his people ever made any moves to alter history—that we're aware of—so we have to believe that's why they were there."

"Why hasn't he tried this before, do you think?" Mason asked. "He's had other opportunities, presumably. So, why now?"

Wyatt shared a glance with Lucy and Rufus. He knew Lucy didn't want Mason or Agent Christopher to know about the diary, but they hadn't really talked about what to say to either Mason or Christopher. 

"It has to be something to do with his next move," Wyatt said. "He needs us sidelined, so he lures us to a period in the past where it'd be difficult, next to impossible, to repair whatever damage he could inflict on the Lifeboat. Plus, if we did manage to get back, we'd be out of commission while Rufus and the team make repairs."

"So, we should expect him to be on the move soon," Christopher said. She turned to Rufus. "How long do you think it'll take you to repair the damage he did?"

"A few days, maybe?" Rufus said, glancing down at Jiya, who nodded her agreement. "We have the supplies, but I'll have to get in there to see if the landing did any more damage. I'll know more tomorrow."

"Alright, all of you head home and we'll debrief in the morning," Christopher said.

"There is one more thing," Wyatt said. All eyes turned to him. He could hear their heart rates go up a little, and he could smell the tang of nervousness and concern filling the air. Lucy reached out and took his hand, squeezing to give him something else to focus on. He shot her a smile, even as both Christopher and Mason looked at them, twin confused frowns on their faces. "I came online while we were in 1754."

"Your superiors told us you were a Sentinel, but they seemed to think you weren't going to come online," Christopher said. "I think that's why they sent you to us. What was the trigger?"

"Apparently, being captured by the Shawnee was more than I could take," Wyatt said. "Lucy helped me through it, though, so I'm good to go."

"Helped you through?" Mason asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Um, yes," Lucy said. Her heart rate, which had been calm before since what he was reporting was old news, kicked up a bit. He'd forgotten that her status as a Guide was a secret, and he could almost feel bad about outing her, except he really didn't want to let her go. "I've been online as a Guide for about five years."

"That wasn't in any of your files," Christopher said. Wyatt tensed at the tone in her voice, but he couldn't fault her for feeling a little out of the loop. 

"I had my files sealed not long after I came online," Lucy said. "Not much call for Guides in the History department."

"Well, we're glad you were there to help Wyatt," Christopher said. She'd lost the edge of suspicion, likely because it wasn't uncommon for Guides to choose to stay anonymous until they found their Sentinel. Christopher turned to Wyatt. "We'll have to report this to your superiors. They will, of course, recall you. I'd like you to debrief your replacement, if you can. It'll put the team at a disadvantage, but it can't be helped at this point."

"Actually, that won't be necessary," Wyatt said. Both Christopher and Mason raised an eyebrow at him. "Military Sentinels who have civilian Guides can't be recalled to combat postings."

"So, you and Lucy…" Mason said, his eyes darting between the two of them, probably looking for the changes that bonding would have brought. 

Most normals expected it to be visible, as if they could quantify and understand something so inherently spiritual. There was a great deal of curiosity around the concept of bonding, mostly because the Sentinel and Guide community didn't talk about it. It was the one thing they refused to talk about, deeming it a private concern between the Sentinel and Guide in question. Not that there hadn't been thousands of books, movies and tv shows written as thinly-disguised speculation about the 'mystery of bonding'. As if a normal person could understand the depth of connection that a Sentinel and Guide shared.

"Lucy is my Guide," Wyatt said. Lucy looked at him, her eyes shouting _oh really_. He was just glad he was the only Sentinel in the room, because his own heart had starting racing in his chest as he said it.

"You bonded in the field?" Christopher asked. 

"We did," Wyatt said. Rufus choked a little, but Wyatt ignored him. "Well, we started to. The wilds of Pennsylvania in 1754 aren't really conducive to a full bonding, but my senses were all over the place, so we had to do something."

And it wasn't even a lie. His senses had been racing out of control in those first few minutes, until Lucy had made contact and somehow reached him in his unguarded and nearly feral state. Maybe they had started to bond in that moment, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that he didn't want to be separated from Lucy, and if he allowed the Deltas to reclaim him, he'd lose her for good. 

"I was able to talk him through it," Lucy said. "There was a lot of skin contact, so it's possible we started to bond during that process."

"At any rate, I won't be returning to the Deltas," Wyatt said. The finality in his tone seemed to reach Agent Christopher.

"Very well," she said, nodding. "I'll reach out to your superiors and let them know what's happened. Meanwhile, you and Lucy should go home and complete the bond. I'll give you 36 hours. You can file the paperwork and do the debrief once your bond has settled."

"Good," Wyatt said. He squeezed Lucy's hand, hoping he hadn't read her wrong. 

"And I'll get started on the repairs," Rufus said. "We should make a list of supplies we can keep in the Lifeboat, just in case. We got lucky this time, but next time…"

"We can pull some stuff together," Jiya said. "Starting with a more durable container for the SOS. It took us a lot longer than it should have to figure out what your message meant."

"Great," Rufus said, rolling his eyes. He and Jiya headed off, presumably for wardrobe, Rufus muttering the whole way about how hard he'd worked on the note, and Jiya assuring him that she'd gotten his meaning, if not the actual words.

"Do you think you made any changes to the timeline while you were in the past?" Christopher asked Wyatt and Lucy once Rufus and Jiya were out of sight.

"Hard to tell," Lucy said. Wyatt thought back to the French soldiers he'd shot. He had no idea if any of them were key to future events, but it wouldn't have changed his approach. "De Villiers faced George Washington in July of 1754. He was actually the only military commander to ever force Washington to surrender."

Christopher and Mason looked at each other, then back at Wyatt and Lucy. "You'll have to look into it when you get back from leave. Early American history wasn't my strongest subject in school," Agent Christopher said.

Wyatt chuckled. "I’m sure Lucy will have it covered. I did try to keep the casualties to a minimum."

"Which we're all grateful for, I'm sure," Christopher said. "Now you two had better get going before I change my mind and keep you here for the debriefing."

"Right," Lucy said. 

She glanced at Wyatt, who squeezed her hand again. He turned and headed towards Wardrobe, tugging on the hand he still held to pull her along with him. 

"That went better than I expected," Lucy said.

"My superiors aren't going to be happy," Wyatt said. "I think we actually got the better end of that deal. There'll be a lot of questions, because I've been in combat before and hadn't come online. They lend me out to a little tech project and I come online within months."

"I'm sure Agent Christopher is adept at not giving people any information while she's explaining what's going on," Lucy said. 

They arrived in Wardrobe to find Rufus and Jiya huddled together in the corner of the room, talking quietly in between soft, sweet kisses. Lucy turned away, blushing slightly.

"It's good to see them connecting," Lucy said. "I think this mission would have been a lot harder on him if they hadn't gotten together before we left."

Wyatt smiled. "Yeah, I'm glad they got it sorted out."

Lucy flashed a smile as she disappeared around the rack and began pulling off her clothes. Wyatt followed suit, keeping the rack between them as he shed the 18th century clothes in favor of his jeans and shirt. He tried to ignore the sound of clothes shifting, or the steady thrum of her heart as she changed, but gave up in favor of letting the sounds soothe his instincts until they got somewhere more private.

He knew things were going to be different from now on. A part of him was eager for this new chapter, but there was a part that was mourning the loss of the way things used to be. He only hoped he could let go of the hurt and pain of losing Jessica enough to be able to embrace having a Guide in his life. Otherwise, this was going to be unpleasant.

~o~

Wyatt ushered Lucy into his apartment, only a little embarrassed by the state of the place. He hadn't had time to make the bed or do laundry before they'd been called in, but thankfully he'd purged all the empty bottles of whiskey. He'd been drunk when they met, so he didn't think his drinking was a surprise to Lucy, but he also didn't think that she'd appreciate a reminder of how he'd found himself working for Mason Industries and Agent Christopher.

"You want something to drink?" he asked as he tossed his keys on the kitchen counter. "I think I've got some orange juice that isn't a total loss."

"Just some water is fine," Lucy said, flashing him that brief, slightly uncomfortable smile he'd seen a lot since they'd met.

He went into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of glasses out of the cupboard. It was a small apartment, almost a studio really. The kitchen was tucked along the wall just to the left of the front door. He had a small table and chairs that he almost never used, preferring instead to sit on the couch across the room watching ESPN while he ate. He knew it made him the worst of clichés, but even his wife knew he was a typical man, at the end of the day.

Thoughts of Jessica brought him back to the present and his current dilemma. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Agent Christopher that Lucy was his Guide. He felt it in his bones, but he had no idea how Lucy felt about it. Plus, every time he thought about bonding with her, he could feel a stabbing pain in his chest that had nothing to do with being a Sentinel.

Jessica had been his whole world for so long that losing her was like someone had turned the lights off. He'd been in a dark place when he'd been assigned to the Lifeboat but having a purpose had helped him fight back some of the darkness. Coming online hadn't been part of the plan, though, and he knew it was something he couldn't run from, not and have any chance at a normal life.

But, he was a soldier at heart, and so he'd learned to compartmentalize early on. He'd just have to use those hard-won skills to get through this.

Taking a deep breath, he filled two glasses from the tap and headed for the couch. He handed Lucy one of the glasses as he settled in beside her and sipped at his own. She flashed him a grateful smile, which he returned. The silence grew between them as the minutes ticked by. 

He could hear her heart hammering in her chest, could smell the stress in her scent. The last thing he wanted to do was force her into bonding. No matter how much he needed it to keep his senses level, he knew she would be fine without a bond. He didn't have a right to demand anything from her, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Are you okay?" she asked, just when he'd resolved to back away and let her leave.

He set his glass on the table and leaned back, rubbing his hands over his face. "Yeah. No. Maybe?"

"You sound like Rufus," she said, bumping his shoulder with her own.

"I just…" He pulled his hands away and dropped them into his lap, turning slightly to look at her. "Why are you here? You don't want to bond with a Sentinel, so I have to wonder why you're here."

"I—" she started, leaning forward to set her glass down and run her hands through her hair. "I didn't think I would ever want a Sentinel. My life was so simple before. Even though history wasn't my passion, I'd found something to love in it. I wasn't lying before about assuming I wouldn't find a Sentinel in the History Department."

"I know," Wyatt said. He stretched an arm out along the back of the couch and settled deeper into the cushions.

"Most Sentinels are in public service in some capacity," she said, leaning back and resting her head on the back of the couch, her hair brushing his sleeve. "The police and fire departments. The military. We're even starting to see them in the medical professions now. History might not have been my dream, but I have no idea what I'd have done if I wasn't doing research. And I had no interest in joining the military or becoming a cop or a fire fighter just so I could find a Sentinel."

"You know that's okay, right?" he asked gently. "No one would have forced you to do something you didn't want to. That's not how this works."

"Yeah, didn't feel that way," she said. "At least, it didn't feel that way to my barely-out-of-my-teens brain."

"If you're not ready for this—and I mean if you're not ready now, and don't think you'll be ready anytime soon—we can call Agent Christopher and tell her it's not working," Wyatt said. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had to say it out loud. "I don't want to leave the team, so we'd have to find a way to work together, or I could find a Guide and bring them on board."

"No!" Lucy said, looking at him with a slightly panicked expression on her face. It made a spark of hope bloom in his chest.

"Hey, it's okay," Wyatt said. He could hear her heart jump and her breathing speed up. She was panicking more than this situation warranted, so he had to believe there was something else going on. He moved to the coffee table and reached out, taking her wrists in his hands, pulling her a little until she rested her forehead against his. "Deep, even breaths. Come on, Lucy. In. Out. In. Out. That's it."

Her breathing smoothed and her heart stopped beating so fast as he whispered soothing words to her. It struck him as odd that he was the one comforting her when, under normal circumstances it would be her doing this for him.

"You okay now?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, pulling back to look at him. "How are you not a mess right now? I mean, shouldn't you be the one falling apart just thinking about me replacing—"

Lucy bit her lip, holding back the words she was going to say. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that would have been. Wyatt let go of her wrist and cupped her cheek.

"I can't say I'm not a mess inside," he said quietly. "In my head, I know that you wouldn’t be replacing Jessica, but my heart is crying out in pain at the idea of any woman being as important to me as she was. If I'd thought about what sort of Guide I might want one day, I might have said I'd choose a male Guide, because at least he wouldn't be trying to take the place of my dead wife."

Lucy flinched back, heartbreak cracking her features in a pained and jagged scar across her face.

"Hey, no," he said. He shifted his grip from her wrist to her hand, enfolding it in both of his. "That doesn't mean I don't want you, Lucy. God, I want you. The idea of bonding with any other Guide leaves me sick to my stomach."

Which, when he thought about it, was what he was always told would happen when he finally found a Guide he was compatible with. It shouldn't have surprised him in the least; he and Lucy had been in sync since they'd met. That didn't happen by accident.

"I never wanted to bond with a Sentinel because I couldn't imagine myself doing the things that they do, but now I'm doing them and I can't imagine doing anything else," Lucy said quietly. "I don't want to—I can't—bond with anyone else. It's you or no one."

Wyatt smiled softly. "Don't we make quite a pair."

"Apparently, we do," she said, returning his smile with a small, sweet one of her own.

"So, how do you want to do this?" he asked. "We have 36 hours, which is plenty of time. But I don't even know what your preference is."

There were two ways they could go about bonding, and according to all the research, neither was preferable to the other. It was likely they had already started a surface bond, so either way, the rest would come quickly. 

They could mediate together, allowing Lucy to reach out to him and draw him in; he would instinctively reach back, establishing the basis for the bond. They'd still have to do the physical imprint, which was important for him to be able to balance his senses on her. It would take longer for the bond to settle between them, mostly because that method meant spending the whole 36 hours practically in each other's hip pocket.

Or, they could just have sex. He could glut his senses on her, explore every inch of her body, and commit it to memory in a way that was indelible. It was the faster path, because in the moment of orgasm, both their minds would be open, and the connection between them would simply snap into place. 

"I, um." 

Wyatt chuckled. The blush that stole across her cheeks was beguiling. "Sex it is."

Lucy huffed. "If I have to be naked, I at least want to get something out of it."

At that, Wyatt burst out laughing. "Fair enough. Come on."

He tugged her up by their joined hands and led her over to the alcove where his bed was. He'd always preferred a king-sized bed, but this apartment was so small, and it had only been him living there anyway, so he'd opted for a double. He might regret that choice now, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He'd just have to make sure the next bed he got—they got, he corrected himself with a giddy little chuckle—was a king. Not a California king, though. No need to be greedy.

"Why don’t you get undressed and climb up on the bed," he said quietly.

Instead of staying to watch, which he really felt like he'd be justified in doing, he opted to refocus on the bed. He pulled the covers off and left them in a pile at the foot. He heard the rustle of clothing that told him Lucy was doing as he'd asked. He smiled as he shed his own clothes. 

When he turned around, Lucy was laying on the bed, naked as the day she was born. He simply stood for a moment and looked his fill. She was, in a word, beautiful. All lean limbs and slim body, she was the very definition of athletic. So very different than Jessica's curves—he quickly shut down that thought. He was about to bond with his Guide. His wife had no place in this moment.

She followed him with her eyes as he crawled up on the bed, looming over Lucy as he locked eyes with her. "Beautiful," he whispered, wanting to share some of his thoughts with her, to assure her that she was the only one he was thinking about.

"I think I'm the lucky one," she said, stroking her hands up his sides, the barely-there touch sending shivers through him. 

He grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head. Her pupils dilated further, and her heart rate jumped ever so slightly. It was an interesting reaction, and something he'd have to explore later, when he didn't feel his instincts pressing at him to complete the bond.

"I need you to stay still," he said quietly. "Can you do that?"

Instead of speaking, she simply nodded, nibbling on her lip as he listened to her heart rate kick up another notch. He nuzzled at her cheek instead of saying anything else, then proceeded to trail his lips down her neck and over her chest. He let go of her wrists as he explored lower, nipping and licking every available inch of skin, inhaling her scent as he went. 

His senses were blown wide open, filled with nothing but her. Her skin was soft and pliant, smooth and firm in some places, while others were hard where the bone sat just under the surface. Her scent was sweet, like honey and lemongrass, with just a hint of spiciness underneath. He thought maybe he'd already become addicted and he'd only just begun to learn it.

Some places he touched earned a gasp, some a giggle, and she nearly kicked him in the face when he ran his nose up the soles of her feet.

"Careful," he said chidingly as he encouraged her to turn over. "You don't want to have to explain to everyone how I wound up with a broken nose."

Lucy buried her chuckles in his pillow. "Probably not, though it might be fun to watch Rufus squirm. I'm not sure he and Jiya have—hey!"

Wyatt chuckled as his teeth let go of her round, pert ass. "We're not talking about them or anyone else when we're in bed. Clear?"

"Sir, yes sir," she said, casting a saucy glance over her shoulder.

"Oh, so it's going to be like that, is it?" he asked as he settled his weight on her, his cock nestling between her ass cheeks as if it had been made to fit. He kissed across her shoulders, glancing up to find a sweet blush dusting her cheeks as she continued to watch him over her shoulder.

"You gonna do something about it?"

He leaned up and took her lips in a searing kiss, lifting up and encouraging her to roll over as he plundered her mouth, chasing the taste of her like it was the very air he needed to breathe.

"I need to—" he started, panting as he pressed his forehead to hers. "Please, I need—tell me you're ready. I—"

"I'm ready," she said softly. "Do it."

He pulled back, his cock unerringly finding the smooth folds of her sex. He pushed forward, sliding home in one long stroke. And home it was, being there in her arms, her body surrounding him, cradling him in its warmth. She wrapped herself around him, body and mind, and he was lost.

He was drowning in her, his body pushing into her with firm steady strokes as her mind pushed into his, each the mirror of each other. He could feel his orgasm rushing up, but he couldn’t stop it, and found he didn’t want to. This wasn't the only time he'd have this bliss, he knew that now. They'd be bound together, body and soul, starting today. He'd never have to feel alone again.

As if that thought brought it on, his orgasm crashed over him. White heat blazed over his body and through his mind, followed by the sweet, cooling sensation of water, quenching the fire, soothing his overworked nerves and bringing balance to his senses in a way he'd never expected. And then the darkness was rushing up into his mind, and he passed out.

~o~

Wyatt hadn't thought it was possible, but in the last 24 hours, he'd had more sex than he'd had in all his thirty-ish years of life. Not that he was complaining; Lucy was an enthusiastic and adventurous lover. They'd had sex on just about every available surface of the apartment, but far from being tired or unable to perform, he'd found himself energized with each orgasm.

He only hoped it would taper off after the bond had settled. There was no way they'd be able to perform their jobs if they had to stop frequently to reaffirm the bond. Still, he'd decided to enjoy it for as long as it lasted.

They were back in bed after polishing off the rest of the Chinese food they'd ordered the previous night. Curled up in the middle of the bed, Wyatt was running his hand up and down Lucy's back, his fingers grazing the knobs of her spine as they passed under his fingertips. It was… soothing, in a way, and he was already addicted.

"Tired?" Lucy asked.

Wyatt shook his head. "No. I probably should be. Let's hope Flynn doesn't head out for a few more days. I think we're gonna need the rest."

"I feel like a teenager," Lucy said, burying her nose into his chest as she let out a laugh. "Actually, scratch that. I never had this much sex when I was a teenager."

"Me either," Wyatt said. He let out his own chuckle. "I know several people who'd be seriously jealous about now."

"Well, they can't have you," Lucy said. 

"No, they can't," Wyatt said, agreeing readily.

"Are you okay otherwise?" Lucy asked, picking up her head to look at him.

"My senses are good, balanced," he said. "Then again, apart from coming online, I've been pretty good. What about you? You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I am," she said, smiling up at him. "I feel good. No headache, and nothing but feel-good hormones right now."

"Headaches?" he asked, readjusting his head so he could see her without craning his neck.

Lucy sighed. "Yeah, headaches. Humans have noisy heads. As a Guide, I'm uniquely susceptible to the emotions people bleed off on a regular basis. Normally, I can keep a lid on it, but especially when I get tired it's almost impossible to block it all out. Being bonded to a Sentinel… it's like someone built The Great Wall of China in my head. You help block out a lot of the ambient emotional noise. It's actually been nice not having that batter at my shields."

"Glad I could help," he said, smiling down at her. "And the rest? I mean, we hardly know each other. I figured you'd be uncomfortable with all this. Especially since you dumped your fiancé after you'd just barely gotten to know him."

"You're different," Lucy said, shrugging as much as she could while curled up against him. She shifted around so she could prop herself up on his chest, looking him in the eyes. "I didn't make an effort with him because it was awkward. I didn't know him, and couldn't figure out why I'd—why the other me had even gone out with him. He was… boring. Normal. Sweet, but just…"

"You do know that that other you you're talking about really isn't so different than the you that's here now," Wyatt said. "Plus, since when is being normal a bad thing?"

"It's not," Lucy said, shrugging her shoulders. "It's just… I don't know. I didn't see what she saw—what I saw—in him."

"It's not like we knew each other all that well, either," he said softly. "We were perfect strangers a couple of months ago. What's different?"

Lucy looked down, running her fingers over his chest, tangling them in the sparse hair there. "I think it's because you're a Sentinel. Even before you came online, I trusted you implicitly. From the beginning. I'm not normally distrustful of strangers, but I trusted you without much effort. Most of the research into Sentinels and Guides suggests that Guides will view Sentinels, even latent ones, as protectors, and because it's Sentinel instinct to protect Guides, even if they're not online, there's a trust relationship that's built on instinct right from the start."

"For something you never intended to involve yourself in, you sure do know a lot about it," Wyatt said.

"I'm a researcher," Lucy said. "Once I knew what was going on, I researched the hell out of it. Mom was too sick to really notice, which helped. I didn't have to explain my sudden interest in Sentinel and Guide history to her."

"Let me guess, that's about when Amy found out," Wyatt said. 

"Yeah," Lucy said. "She found me researching and wondered why the interest all of a sudden. When I didn't answer, she basically made the leap of logic that took her straight to online Guide. It was such a relief to have someone to talk to that it didn't even bother me that I was that bad at keeping a secret."

"Seems like you've gotten better at that," he said, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "Pretending that things are normal, anyway."

"I've had lots of practice," she said, shrugging. "What about you? You're still not freaking out about this—which is weird, by the way. I know your senses are alright. What about the rest of you?"

"Okay, I get it," Wyatt said, smiling. "We're done talking about your complicated home life."

Lucy pinched his side, causing him to squirm and nearly knock her off him. Her expression turned serious as she watched him settle back in. "I know it was a shock, coming online. And despite what you've said, choosing to bond with me is not a simple thing. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't make sure you're handling things okay."

"I know," he said quietly, smiling softly at her. "I'm okay. Not great, but I'm okay. It's hard, thinking about Jessica, especially when I'm here with you. I can't regret that I found you, and I'm not going to apologize for wanting to bond with you. But this is how it is now, so it does no good to look back at how things used to be. I can't do my job—and work with you on a day-to-day basis—if I'm still holding on to the memory of my wife."

"That's pretty enlightened," Lucy said. "Most men would run and hide at the first thought of dealing with their feelings."

Wyatt shrugged. "As a soldier, we're taught how to compartmentalize. If you learn to separate the horrible stuff we see in our jobs, and keep it from intruding on the personal, it makes it easier to keep your head above water."

"Doesn't mean you don't need to deal with the grief and pain of losing someone so important to you," she said.

"Yeah, and believe me, I've already paid dearly for trying to avoid dealing with that pain," he said bitterly. He sighed. "The truth is that I wouldn't have been here with you—working with Rufus and trying to stop Flynn—if Jessica were still alive. They wouldn’t have sent me, which means I wouldn't have met you. Would I maybe have never come online? I don't know. It's possible, given what the doctors were saying. Which means I wouldn't have you in my life right now. Am I in love with you? No, I can't say I am." 

Lucy flinched a little, but Wyatt wrapped his arms around her and held her close, whispering into her ear when she laid her head on his chest. "That doesn't mean I couldn't be, one day. You're not the only one who did research. I had to know—once I found out I was latent—I had to _know_ how it would affect me if I came online and found a Guide. For as much as the Forces want online Sentinels, it's a two-edged sword. We're dynamic forces in battle, but we're also hard-wired to protect our Guides, which means if our Guide is threatened, we'll work to eliminate that threat before we complete the mission at hand."

He pulled back a little, tilting her chin up so he could look her in the eye. "The Forces call it 'The Promised Land', finding a Guide. Finding the one person, the one place, you've always belonged. You are and will always be the center of my world, Lucy. _You_ are my Promised Land. One day that will translate from head-knowledge to heart-knowledge. I _will_ fall in love with you. That's inevitable. But we have time for that. You have time to get to know me even better. I don't expect it to happen overnight, and I don't expect you to try to rush yourself to get there. It'll happen when you're ready. When _we're_ ready.

"And in the meantime, we get to enjoy each other's company," he said, tipping her over onto her back and settling above her, pressing kisses to every inch of skin he could reach.

"Mmmmm," she hummed, wrapping her arms around him. "I like the way you think."

Wyatt pulled back, raising an eyebrow at her. "And the rest?"

"You're right," she said. She stroked a finger over his eyebrow. "It'll happen when it happens. I'm just glad it'll happen with you."

"So am I, Lucy," he said, smiling down at her. "So am I."

...continued...


	3. The Future

~o~

They sat in the conference room, surrounded by what looked like an entire forest of paperwork. Wyatt knew that he'd have to sign some forms in order to register as an online Sentinel, but he felt like this might just be a bit much. Plus, the report stating when and how he'd come online was going to be classified six ways from Sunday. He wasn't even sure his superiors with the Deltas would be able to look at it.

"Why do they even need to know that?" Lucy asked from her seat across the table. 

Wyatt looked up. "Which part? Because I've found a few of those."

"'Did you, at any time, experience loss of sensation in your extremities during the online event?'" She looked up at him. "Why would I have lost feeling in my fingers and toes? I wasn't the one coming online as a Sentinel."

"I've actually seen something like that," Wyatt said. "A buddy of mine came online during a mission. It was like a switch flipped, and he suddenly went from groping around in the dark to klieg lighting. One of the online Guides almost blacked out from the empathic backlash. They use it to baseline what sort of training you might need, based on which senses you had the most trouble with when you came online."

"Then why didn't they just say that?" she muttered as she went back to the paperwork.

"Because some people wouldn't ask for help even if their guts were hanging out of an open wound."

"Gross," Lucy said, shaking her head.

"Stubborn," Wyatt said as Agent Christopher walked into the room, followed by Connor Mason.

"Wyatt, Lucy," she said as she stopped at the head of the table, a large manila envelope clutched in one hand. "How's the paperwork going?"

"Apart from some very inappropriate interest in how we bonded, pretty good," Lucy said.

"How did it go with my CO?" Wyatt asked. He hadn't had the chance to ask when they'd first arrived back at Mason Industries, but from the sour look on her face, he'd guess it didn't go well.

"About how you'd expect," she said, taking a seat. Mason sat to her left, on Lucy's side of the table, settled back and appeared to just be listening. "They were going to recall you straight away, until I informed them that your Guide was a civilian. I think they would have done it anyway if my boss hadn't gotten involved. Seems you're more valuable to them than we were lead to believe."

Wyatt shrugged. He dropped his pen onto the stack of papers he'd been working his way through, leaning back and turning toward Christopher and Mason. Lucy paused, watching him carefully, likely making sure he didn't get too stressed out over the conversation. He winked at her, and watched as she relaxed infinitesimally.

"I was a good operative before my wife died," he said without preamble. "When she died, I kind of fell apart. That's why they sent me to you—well, part of it anyway. I think they figured a change of scenery would help me pull my shit together. They weren't wrong, but I doubt this was the outcome they were looking for."

"No, it wasn't," Christopher said. "They seemed to think that, even if your Guide was a civilian, they might be able to train him to operate in the field with you. I had to break it to them that your new Guide is a female historian. I didn't realize that Generals were that… salty."

Lucy burst out laughing. "Sorry. It's just… salty?"

"Maybe 'fucking stubborn' would be a better description," Mason said mildly.

"That sounds about right," Wyatt said. He turned back to Christopher. "They invest a lot of time and money in training us. Knowing that he's not going to get me back would have pissed him off, and there's nothing worse than an old, pissed-off soldier."

"Yes," Christopher said. "At any rate, we've had to make some changes that will affect you both."

"What kind of changes?" Lucy asked. She'd dropped her pen on the paperwork in front of her and was now fully engaged with the conversation.

"First, Wyatt," Christopher said. She slid a packet over to him. "That's your new Homeland Security ID and employment contract. The Army has agreed to put you on their Reserve-Inactive list for the foreseeable future. You'll retain your rank and all the privileges associated with it, however, effective immediately, you'll be a fully-vested agent with Homeland Security. We've waived the FLETC training requirement, because we can't afford to have you out of the field for six weeks, but I'll make sure you get all the training materials you need. I am, of course, available to you should you have any questions."

"Wow," Wyatt said. "Just like that."

"I apologize if it seems heavy-handed, but it was the only way we could keep you and not risk the Army unilaterally recalling you, civilian Guide or not," she said.

"No, I understand," he said. "It's just… not something I thought was coming for another twenty years." When Christopher opened her mouth, Wyatt held up a hand to forestall whatever she was about to say. "I'll get used to it; it'll just take time."

Christopher nodded. "Just don't take too much time."

"Noted," Wyatt said softly as he flipped through the new paperwork.

"Now, Lucy," Christopher said, turning to his Guide. "Not much will change for you. You'll still have your consultant contract with Homeland, and you'll continue to act as Chief Historian for the project. You'll both be registered as a bonded pair with Homeland Security as well as the Army. That was their only stipulation, and we saw no need to refuse. Registering with the Army will, in fact, protect you from being deployed without training."

"Could they recall Wyatt and put me through training so I could join him in the field?" Lucy asked.

"No, they can't," Wyatt said. "At least, not without both our consent, and I'm not about to consent to putting you in some of the situations I've been in over the last few years."

"Seems to me that you've already been in some combat situations," Mason said, seemingly offhanded.

Wyatt tipped his head a little, conceding the point. "I do what I can to keep them both out of the line of fire."

"And to that end, we'd also like you to train Lucy and Rufus to handle a gun," Christopher said.

"Well, I'm game, but I don't know about Rufus," Lucy said. "I'm not even sure he knows which end of the gun to point at the bad guys."

"And if we're out in the field and I'm incapacitated, that means you would be too," Wyatt said to Lucy. It was the reality of being online, and he wasn't going to sugar-coat it. "It’s my duty to protect you, and if I'm not able to, I want Rufus to be able to do it for me. My instincts aren't going to allow for anything else."

"I'll talk to him, but you might consider bringing it up with him in those terms," Christopher said. "He might feel differently if you explain how your instincts play into this."

"Sure," Wyatt said.

"Once you've finished filling out all this paperwork, we'll send copies to Homeland and the Army, as well as the Sentinel and Guide Foundation," Christopher said. "Let me know if you have any questions about the contract, Wyatt."

"Thanks," Wyatt said, smiling at her. 

Lucy flashed a smile at her as she left the room.

"I hope you know that I'll use all my considerable power and influence to keep you here, should you ever have need of it," Mason said as he stood up. "You are both vital to this project, and I want to make sure you have whatever you need to make it a success."

"Thank you," Lucy said.

Wyatt merely nodded his head at the other man as he walked out of the room.

"Well, I did not expect that," Lucy muttered.

"Which part?" Wyatt asked.

"All of it," Lucy said, waving her hand to encompass the paperwork and Christopher and Mason. "Are you okay? This was all kind of unexpected."

"Story of my life these days," Wyatt said. He reached across the table and took Lucy's hand. "It's fine. I wasn't planning to retire from the Deltas until they threw me out, but I'm not leaving you. This is where you are, so this is where I need to be. I'll get used to it."

"You're kind of amazing, you know?"

"I don't know about amazing," Wyatt said, smiling. "Just really good at rolling with the punches. Now, what do you say we power through the rest of this paperwork and then call Rufus. Maybe we can do dinner tonight."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Lucy said. She squeezed his hand, then picked up her pen and got back to work.

Wyatt watched for a moment before he turned back to his own paperwork, thinking to himself that one of them was definitely amazing. His money was on Lucy.

~o~

"Well, there it is," Rufus said. They'd met at a local restaurant for dinner. Lucy and Wyatt sat on one side of the booth while Rufus sat on the other. He'd been surfing the 'net on his phone when they'd arrived, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what he was looking for. 

"Let me see," Lucy said. She hadn't had the time, or frankly the desire, to go looking for whatever historical evidence they'd left behind in their escape from 1754. Rufus turned the phone towards her, and she raised an eyebrow at the headline. ’The Mysterious Orb Incident of 1754'. That doesn't sound the least bit ominous."

Wyatt chuckled. "They probably thought it was some sort of mass hallucination, or a sign of demons entering our world."

"You're not far off," Rufus said. He'd turned the phone back and was scrolling through the page, scanning the information. "They called it a portal into hell, and we were demons in human form. Pretty ridiculous stuff, really. I mean, did they honestly believe that?"

"Probably," Lucy said. "Back then, people were far more religious than they are now. If the same thing happened today, most people would take it for confirmation that aliens do exist. In the 1700s, it would have been confirmation of demons or witchcraft."

"People were idiots back then, weren't they?" Rufus asked, scrunching up his nose.

"Not everyone," Lucy said. "After all, our Founding Fathers also lived through those years. But yes, people were pretty quick to assume a fantastical explanation because they had no frame of reference for something technologically advanced like the Lifeboat."

"'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,’” Wyatt said.

Lucy turned to him, her mouth hanging open just a little. “Arthur C. Clarke? When did you read Clarke?”

“When I was a kid,” Wyatt said, shrugging his shoulders. “What? It was interesting stuff.”

“You never cease to amaze me,” Lucy said with a shake of her head.

“So,” Rufus said, shutting his phone off and setting it aside. “What now?”

“We eat dinner,” Wyatt said as the waitress delivered their meals.

Lucy watched as Wyatt tucked into his meal, seemingly having no trouble at all with the flavors and textures he was eating. It amazed her more than a little that he seemed so well-balanced after coming online in such a traumatic way. And very little of that had to do with her. He seemed to just have taken the changes on board and kept right on going.

Of course she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. He would still struggle with the changes for a while, especially letting go of his wife. But she did feel like they were on solid ground together, and that was worth a lot.

“Okay, now that we have dinner,” Rufus said, rolling his eyes. “What do we do about Rittenhouse and Flynn and the whole... thing.”

“We keep doing what we’re doing,” Wyatt said. “Flynn is still out there trying to alter our history. He may be right that Rittenhouse needs to go, but he’s going about it all wrong, and it’s up to us to stop him.”

“And us?” Rufus asked. “Are we good?”

“Of course, Rufus,” Lucy said before Wyatt could answer. “I meant what I said before: we both get why you did what you did. Whatever decision you make, we’re behind you.”

“We’re a team,” Wyatt said. “We’ll back your play, no matter what. But just don’t keep things from us. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”

“I know,” Rufus said. He paused, a small smile blooming on his face. “So, you think we’re your team now?”

Wyatt rolled his eyes. “We’ve always been a team. It may have taken me a while to get that, but I get it now. Like I said: I’ve got your back, and you’ll have mine. That’s how a team works.”

“What about the Sentinel thing?” Rufus said. “I thought Sentinels preferred to work alone.”

“That’s just a myth perpetuated by Hollywood,” Lucy said. “The truth is, Sentinels work best in concert with each other and with normals. They can pool their skills and benefit the tribe, and the normals can do the things that Sentinels can’t. Community isn’t just a catchy phrase, it’s a way of life for Sentinels.”

“The tribe, huh?” Rufus said. “I’ve never heard that one. Well, apart from being in 1754 and being held captive by an actual tribe.”

“Sentinels and Guides form families of choice,” Lucy said. “Outsiders tend to call them prides, but those of us in the community just call it the tribe.”

“Okay,” Rufus said. “Sounds like I have some learning to do. Maybe someone could recommend a book or a website or something?”

“I’ll get you access to the Sentinel and Guide Foundation website,” Lucy said. “There’s a lot of good information on there, and much of it was designed for those who are newly online, or families and coworkers of the newly online.”

“Cool,” Rufus said.

“So, anything happen while we were gone?” Wyatt asked.

“We’ve got the Lifeboat almost fixed,” Rufus said. “And Jiya and I have been working on an emergency repair kit we can keep onboard. We’re still looking for some options for a better container to send the SOS in, if we ever need to again. Otherwise, we’re looking good. Another day and we should be back in business.”

“Anyone else think it’s highly suspicious that Flynn hasn’t gone out while we’ve been out of commission?” Wyatt asked.

“I can’t help thinking that it’s got something to do with the diary,” Lucy said. “He puts so much stock in it. Maybe it’s like he’s following a script.”

“I have to think he’s smarter than that,” Wyatt said. “He could actually get something done if he knew we weren’t able to catch up to him. So why hasn’t he gone out?”

Rufus shrugged his shoulders, balling up his napkin and tossing it on his empty plate. “Don’t know, don’t care. I’m just glad we didn’t have to drag you out of your place in the middle of—whatever it is you were doing. Which I’m not imagining. At all.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Relax, Rufus. We spent part of that time moving me into Lucy’s place.”

“Oh yeah? Just like that?” Rufus asked.

“Eh, my place was just a place to sleep,” Wyatt said. He set his fork aside and leaned back. “It wasn’t even a really nice place to sleep.”

“Plus, my mother will be less suspicious if she doesn’t know I’ve moved in with someone,” Lucy said. 

“Are you going to tell her?” Rufus asked. “I mean, isn’t it better coming from you?”

Lucy shared a look with Wyatt. It wasn’t that she didn’t want her mother to know, it was more like she knew her mother wouldn’t understand. And would question why a Special Forces operator was working for a tech company. 

“I think we’d rather keep her from asking too many questions,” Wyatt said. “Neither of us wants to say the wrong thing and spark her curiosity. Eventually we’ll have to tell her. Just not right now.”

“That’s gotta suck,” Rufus said. 

“It’s not like I’m not already keeping secrets,” Lucy said, shrugging. “This is just one more.”

“You know, this isn’t what I thought I’d be doing when I signed on to work with Mason,” Rufus said. “I thought he needed an engineer, not a time traveler.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think I’d be the one writing Flynn’s playbook,” Lucy said, flopping back in the booth. She crossed her arms and blew out a breath. “I just can’t believe I’d be so stupid to write it all down and give it to him, of all people.”

“Hey,” Wyatt said softly. He took her hand, squeezing it as he tugged her into his side. “You don’t have to write the journal. But even if you do, it’s not the end of the world. At least we know he’s following some sort of pattern. We may not know what it is, but it does make him predictable, in a way. Apart from this last mission, he’s gone after historical figures that are part of Rittenhouse. We can use that. Make it work for us.”

“You think?” Rufus said.

Wyatt turned and smiled at the other man. “Look, we’re a team, and we are each other’s greatest assets. Plus, I’m online now, which has its own set of advantages. We’ll get ahead of him at some point. It’s just a matter of time.”

“You sound so sure of that,” Rufus said.

“I am,” Wyatt said. “I believe in us, as a team. And right now, I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“To teamwork,” Rufus said, picking up his glass and toasting the other two.

Wyatt and Lucy followed suit, all three clinking glasses. As Lucy took a sip, she thought about how her life had changed in such a short period of time. Time traveler, bonded to a Sentinel, seeing history instead of just reading about it.

It may not be what she’d expected her life to turn out, but Wyatt was right: she wouldn’t be anywhere else.

~Finis


End file.
